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>the idealistic Twitter Never saw Twitter as idealistic. Seems to just want to show you celebrity gossip. Substantially worse product than Facebook from the st

>the idealistic Twitter Never saw Twitter as idealistic. Seems to just want to show you celebrity gossip. Substantially worse product than Facebook from the start, and really pioneered the attempts at trying to continuously grab people's attention as opposed to just being a tool. Not really a defense of Zuck's products as a whole as Instagram seems to be the same. >Facebook beat MySpace IMO because it tricked people into using real names That was (and is) a fantastic feature, and I remember being aware of it when I signed up. It was super easy to meet people in real life then find them on Facebook, and then invite them to future events in real life or keep track of what they're up to. Also Myspace allowing HTML resulted in a bunch of entirely unreadable pages. And the Myspace extended friend network didn't really work because everyone was friends with Myspace Tom (who by all means seems to be a chill guy IRL) >Remember the apps, like zombie games? Facebook was not kind to 3rd party devs. If anything, Facebook was too friendly to third party devs (which does track with your comparison with Amazon, which I think is far too friendly to third party sellers). Third party apps are anti-features IMO. Should've just stuck to its core functionality, connecting you with people you know, and showing you content from groups that you have chosen to join (which you can still get in your newsfeed if you aggressively block and hide almost everything, which I do lol)

criddell 2y ago
> Substantially worse product than Facebook from the start I disagree. When Twitter first started taking off at SXSW twenty years ago it had very little in common with Facebook. There wasn't an algorithm, there were no ads, and there was barely a website. You just received text messages from people you followed. You mostly interacted with it via your phone and for many of us, that meant text entry on the digits keys of a Nokia or Motorola phone. It was delightful. You likely personally knew all the people you were tweeting with. Facebook was something you did on your computer. There were lots of ads and they had just launched the algorithmic news feed. It was the beginning of something bad IMHO.
- MiddleEndian 2y ago
  I think I got an account in late 2007 or 2008, so perhaps it was different in 2006 or early 2007. But I do remember in 2009, Ashton Kutcher was in the news for having a million followers on Twitter, so the time where it was not for celebrity gossip was certainly brief. I also generally prefer not to be notified by things on my phone if I can avoid it, computer use is more deliberate. >You likely personally knew all the people you were tweeting with. But I certainly knew all the people I was friends with on Facebook, they were people I first met in person, and it had their names. I think fundamentally, I dislike the asymmetric nature of "following" people on Twitter (or Instagram or whatever). On Facebook you are friends or you are not. Obviously you can hide/mute people or whatever but the fundamental interaction is mutual.
duxup 2y ago
IIRC, early twitter really felt like it was there to provide content you wanted. It was different at the start.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Back then, it was always different at the start. This was when digital services were built with the service, not exit, in mind. Or maybe it's just me looking at the past through rose-colored glasses? Yet I really feel the rot wasn't always there, it set in over time and eventually encompassed all. Today, I pretty much assume that any new service is an exit-seeking scam until proven otherwise; I don't remember having much reason for that 15 years ago.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> Never saw Twitter as idealistic. Seems to just want to show you celebrity gossip. Substantially worse product ... That may have been late stage Twitter, but early stage twitter was _not_ that. It became _the_ (only) way to be able to get near real-time information on some unfolding event, usually by the people actually involved, and very useful in that regard. It facilitated realtime communications in a way that FB did not.

criddell 2y ago

> Substantially worse product than Facebook from the start I disagree. When Twitter first started taking off at SXSW twenty years ago it had very little in common with Facebook. There wasn't an algorithm, there were no ads, and there was barely a website. You just received text messages from people you followed. You mostly interacted with it via your phone and for many of us, that meant text entry on the digits keys of a Nokia or Motorola phone. It was delightful. You likely personally knew all the people you were tweeting with. Facebook was something you did on your computer. There were lots of ads and they had just launched the algorithmic news feed. It was the beginning of something bad IMHO.

MiddleEndian 2y ago
I think I got an account in late 2007 or 2008, so perhaps it was different in 2006 or early 2007. But I do remember in 2009, Ashton Kutcher was in the news for having a million followers on Twitter, so the time where it was not for celebrity gossip was certainly brief. I also generally prefer not to be notified by things on my phone if I can avoid it, computer use is more deliberate. >You likely personally knew all the people you were tweeting with. But I certainly knew all the people I was friends with on Facebook, they were people I first met in person, and it had their names. I think fundamentally, I dislike the asymmetric nature of "following" people on Twitter (or Instagram or whatever). On Facebook you are friends or you are not. Obviously you can hide/mute people or whatever but the fundamental interaction is mutual.

duxup 2y ago

IIRC, early twitter really felt like it was there to provide content you wanted. It was different at the start.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Back then, it was always different at the start. This was when digital services were built with the service, not exit, in mind. Or maybe it's just me looking at the past through rose-colored glasses? Yet I really feel the rot wasn't always there, it set in over time and eventually encompassed all. Today, I pretty much assume that any new service is an exit-seeking scam until proven otherwise; I don't remember having much reason for that 15 years ago.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> Never saw Twitter as idealistic. Seems to just want to show you celebrity gossip. Substantially worse product ... That may have been late stage Twitter, but early stage twitter was _not_ that. It became _the_ (only) way to be able to get near real-time information on some unfolding event, usually by the people actually involved, and very useful in that regard. It facilitated realtime communications in a way that FB did not.